Friday, October 30, 2009

Ho boy. So there I was at Berlin Bar socialising with and slowly getting to know my friend Monique's latest squeeze, when what does the guy do? HE GOES ON A NICE GUY RANT.

If friends’ relationships had that little option like YouTube comments do, where you can click “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, this guy would be sitting on -2 as a prospective boyfriend.

“Here’s what I don’t understand about women...” he suddenly blurts. That gets my attention straightaway, and not in an attentive OMG-Smart-Man-Saying-Something-Witty way.

“With women it’s like, applying for a job, right? You ace the interview, you’re neatly-presented and polite, and have all the right qualifications. But they say no, actually, despite all that I’m going to hire this other guy who is less qualified than you, who turns up late for work and sometimes drinks! And then they phone you and complain about what a jerk the OTHER GUY is! What is with that?”

Luckily for this guy’s balls the topic was killed by the abrupt arrival of our cocktail waiter but I couldn’t get the painful sound of STUPID out of my ears all night.

Oh, so women – simply by existing – are by default “advertising” for this “job”. And every single guy is, by default, automatically granted this figurative job interview? What are these purported “qualifications” you have that are so wonderful anyhow? And what is this “job” you think you’re applying for, can we elaborate on that? The job of you getting to have sex with hot chicks? You picked the metaphor, jackass, I’m just rolling with it.

Here’s the thing about the Nice Guy rant. Oh, you know the one. “I’m so nice but women only want to be FRIENDS with me and they only like jerks and then they COMPLAIN TO ME ABOUT THEM THE INSENSTIVE DUMBASS WHORES WOE IS ME.”

1. You are assuming the world is made up of only three types of people. Nice Guys, Jerks, and Women.

2. Women are generally saying “I just want to be friends” or keep up some pretence of a civil relationship with you because they are socialised to be nice and submissive and polite, so although they are aware you are sexually interested in them they ARE NOT INTERESTED IN YOU but do not want to hurt your feelings or possibly compromise their safety by being a “bitch” about it. Like that matters, because somebody like you probably only sees women are bitches and hos anyway.

3. Is your head so fucking up your own arse that you don’t have the slightest shred of a clue about your own roaring hypocrisy? Going on about how shallow women are for rejecting you when you are only ever referring to women you find ATTRACTIVE? If an unattractive woman you found “nice” had a desperate crush on you, would you play by your own rules and date the Nice Girl Who is “Qualified” or the Hottie Who Is Slightly Less “Qualified” but you’re much more interested in?

4. If you expect sex as a reward you are entitled to for being a decent human being to attractive women, and complain about women who subsequently believe you’re their friend (probably why confide in you about their relationship problems, funnily enough!) after you fucking emotionally manipulated them trying to get yourself laid, and then get FURIOUS and BITTER when it becomes clear they're not interested... THEN YOU ARE NOT A VERY NICE GUY. At least a Jerk is straightforward about being a jerk – you on the other hand are creepy and calculating and do not accept a woman’s right to chose whom to date, whom to fuck and whom to reject.

5. In fact you can fuck right off you entitled misogynistic little turd.

6. No really, fuck off.

Yes, rejection sucks, but let’s not chalk it up to how you’re so fucking nice and it’s all womankind’s fault for being too shallow and dumb to see it. Here’s a novel idea! Try seeing women as human beings, not a collective vagina that won’t let you put your penis in it!

Monique, I’m worried. In case you’re wondering about what the other “thumbs down” was for, Mr New Guy is also very picky and judgemental about the way women dress – deriding passing girls with jeans of a certain fit as having a “bad look” for example, or asserting how women shouldn’t wear X with Y. Yet he looks like Elton fucking John. Both of these flaws about him are coming from the same place. It’s not the place Good Boyfriends come from.

Monday, October 19, 2009

According to my voicemail my mum wants some “computer software” that has been left somewhere in my huge messy house after I swapped two old computers for one new one and a laptop; the "software", might actually be "hardware", she's not sure but she knows it is “in a drawer”, so could I please find the “thing” and express post it to her?

Friday, October 16, 2009

At the train station, I was distracted from my book by a wildly-gesturing, loud-voiced young man pacing up and down the platform whilst talking animatedly on the phone.

“Yeah my trip was awesome, in ten days I was the most popular person at the backpacker’s, basically I was the crazy one everybody wanted to party with, I’ve long since worked out I can have fun with a cardboard box, so what are the plans for tonight, I’m meeting people in the city, or we might go to Prahran...”

A crazy thought struck me. Is it possible that he was staging an elaborate pantomime of a phone conversation for an audience of crowded travellers in some weird attempt to seem cool and popular? Because honestly, he just seemed like too much of an arrogant wanker to actually have friends that would listen to him talk for longer than five minutes, and the phrases he used and the volume at which his voice delivered them just screamed, “LOOK AT ME LISTEN IN TO MY CONVERSATION I WANT YOU TO KNOW HOW FUN AND CRAZY AND IN-DEMAND I AM I HAVE SOMETHING TO PROVE!” I mean, I haven't heard anyone use the word “popular” like that since high school.

Then again he might have been speeding off his head. The way his hips swung exaggeratedly while he covered the ground of the entire platform in maniacal struts would certainly suggest so. And hey man – ANYONE can have fun with a cardboard box! I practically spent my entire childhood making shit out of them! You’re not some über-special Bastion of Awesomeness!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Something said by a bar manager during a bar training session held at my place of work still bothers me and sort of illustrates perfectly why I loathe hospitality so much sometimes. Our trainer Ashley was explaining that when serving certain beers you shouldn’t pour all the way to the top of the glass, because some ‘beer connoisseurs’ (I know. I know.) like to have nose space in order to adequately discern the fragrance of the beer. According to Ashley, though, some customers don’t display the same levels of refinement:

“You sort of have to read the customer, like if you serve a beer like that to a New Zealander they’ll be all like, ‘What are you doing, top it up bro!’ But that’s just a lack of education.”

Erm.

Ashley, despite the fact I have a huge crush on you I must tell you that was an incredibly arrogant privileged classist and yes, racist thing to say (given that the accent you put on while imitating a New Zealander was of the exaggerated Maori type).

Here’s the thing. I could go through an entire PHD scholarship and never come across information pertaining to the manner in which I must drink some obscure beer in order to appreciate its subtle finery. If you were to then call me uneducated using a single encounter in some pompous bar as your evidence, I would probably throw that beer in your face.

You seem quite intelligent and despite a bit of industry arrogance you are quite a nice guy. But you’re hardly the most educated person I know. Some respect for others wouldn’t go astray.

It is so offensive to call anybody uneducated. It implies a smug superiority and usually plays on old stereotypes regarding class and race. These are still very real inequalities that affect people – class and/or race can decide whether an underprivileged person can or can’t access education.

Given that you were not talking about issues affecting society, but the way to enjoy some pretentious beer, makes the ‘lack of education’ slur doubly offensive. Some perspective, please.

Says he: “I think this is a big fuss about racism without anyone actually being able to find anyone that’s racist. [to Hughes, challengingly] Do you think Daryl Somers is a racist? Do you think those blokes are really in their hearts – racist?”

No! In their heart of hearts they weave rainbows and adopt homeless puppies and OH WAIT NO they are just racist actually! Yes, yes they are, even if they do nice things and donate to charity and don't commit mass genocide! Going on a crappy variety show and covering your face in shoe polish and dressing as a minstrel and PERFORMING IN BLACKFACE still falls under "racism", see?

Says he: “I do think there was no racist intent on their behalf. The whole thing is about seeming, not being... We beat ourselves up for being racist! Unnecessarily in my opinion.”

Oh my fuck, you can’t be serious. An educated, presumably well-read, grown man genuinely believing and perpetuating the belief it is more offensive to be called racist than actually doing incredibly racist things.

And let’s talk about intention, shall we? Let’s use a crazy comparison! Like, say I did something “incredibly dumb”, to use the words you use to describe this abomination of a skit, and got behind the wheel of my car and started texting. And maybe as a result I run over a couple of people and break their legs. Oh, but then I wring my hands and cry and wave my phone and wail, “I didn’t mean to! Sure it was a silly thing to do, something generally frowned upon by authority figures and bound to have consequences, but it was not my intention to cause harm.”

Ir-fucking-relevant. Your actions have lead to serious consequences. Address them. Don’t yak on about your itty bitty feelings and your bullshit “intention” after you’ve hit people with a fucking car. Which is what watching that racist-as-fuck skit felt like.

Says he: “Some of [the outrage] is a bit ‘look at me’ – the easiest way to seem noble and non-racist yourself is to accuse someone else... some people get off on that.”

Why, precisely! People expressing outrage over racism just want to look good! Not to mention people of colour who might have been offended – no really, I’m not mentioning them I’m just going to cleverly imply that anybody who is offended is some white guy who just wants to look noble! This outrage is coming from all those PC wankers that want ATTENTION! What is this guy’s address, I’m going to vomit in a box and send it to him.

“You’ve got to see it in a little bit of context... they were reprising something they did in the less sensitive years.”

Yes, the good old “less sensitive years”, when you could call Asians “Nips” and make fun of disabled people and perform in blackface and treat oppressed groups as subhuman, whatever happened to those merry times? Oh that’s right we tried to evolve into a society that respects all its members and treats people like human fucking beings!

About Me

Uni student by day, costumed vigilante by night, haunting the rooftops of Melbourne's gritty, criminal underworld while wishing she had real superpowers or actual crime-fighting ability. May or may not suffer major emotional problems stemming from this chaotic dual life.
Probably just overcaffeinated.